JAN. 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azeri police have detained at least another 20 men linked to the unregistered Islamic Party of Azerbaijan (AIP), local media reported. On Jan. 8 police arrested AIP’s leader, Movsum Samadov, for inciting mass unrest. Founded in 1991, AIP has links with Iran.
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(News report from Issue No. 23, published on Jan. 17 2011)
JAN. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said he will visit Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan from Jan. 13 – Jan. 15 to persuade them to commit to the proposed Nabucco gas pipeline. The $11b Nabucco pipeline is key to Europe’s plan to reduce its reliance on Russia for energy.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
JAN. 8 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s security services detained the head of a banned Islamic group for inciting disorder and calling for a Jihad, media reported. Earlier in January, Mohsun Samedov, leader of the Islamic Party of Azerbaijan, had posted a speech on the internet criticising a ban on headscarves and calling for the government to quit.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
DEC. 20 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran wants to boost gas imports from Azerbaijan in 2011, the Iranian news agency SHANA quoted a senior official at the Iranian National Gas Company (INGC) as saying. Iran has improved ties with its neighbours in Central Asia and the South Caucasus this year especially with Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 20, published on Dec. 20 2010)
DEC. 15 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — A US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks revealed how in September 2008 a gas leak forced BP to evacuate 211 workers from one of its biggest oil drilling platforms in the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea. The cable said BP tried to limit public information of the gas leak which shut down part of production at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field.
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(News report from Issue No. 20, published on Dec. 20 2010)
DEC. 10 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said Armenia would recognise the independence of Nagorno- Karabakh if Azerbaijan ever threatened to retake the disputed region with force. No country has recognised Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state since it broke away from Azerbaijan with Armenia’s support after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
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(News report from Issue No. 19, published on Dec. 13 2010)
DEC. 6 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — The latest from WikiLeaks revealed US diplomatic cables from Turkmenistan which described leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov as vain and not very bright and another from Azerbaijan which compared President Ilham Aliyev and his father to the mafia bosses in the film The Godfather.
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(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
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NOV. 18/19 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan released two bloggers from jail whose imprisonment in November 2009 for hooliganism triggered an international outcry. Human rights groups said the authorities arrested the bloggers after they made a satire about the government. The court released them but did not overturn their conviction.
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(News report from Issue No. 16, published on Nov. 22 2010)
NOV. 22 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Control of the Caspian Sea and its resources are worth arguing over.
It is the biggest inland body of water in the world, covering an area about the size of Germany, and dominates trade routes between Europe and Asia. The Caspian Sea also holds vast stocks of sturgeon which produce the lucrative caviar. Most tantalising, though, is the oil potential.
Its reserves are difficult to estimate but the US Energy Information Administration puts them at between 17b and 44b barrels of oil — equivalent to the oil reserves of Qatar at the bottom end of the scale and to the United States at the upper end.
The five states which border the Caspian Sea — Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan — have argued over its ownership for years. On Nov. 18 in Baku the heads of these countries met for their third summit in eight years on how to divide the Caspian Sea and its treasures between them. Once again much was promised but little agreed.
Writing for Asia Times Online, Robert Cutler, a Canada-based academic, commented: “While the framework for a relatively minor security cooperation agreement was endorsed, the summit’s real significance lay in the agreements not reached and documents not signed.”
Before 1991, ownership of the Caspian Sea was less complex as it only needed an agreement between the Soviet Union and Iran. Now, with five countries, it’s far more difficult. Add into the mix the Caspian Sea’s emergence as an energy transit route to Europe and the debates heat up.
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(News report from Issue No. 16, published on Nov. 22 2010)
NOV. 18 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – The leaders of the five countries that border the Caspian Sea met for a summit in Baku to discuss the sea’s disputed ownership but they failed to sign any major agreements. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had arrived on Nov.17 for separate bilateral talks with Azerbaijan’s President.
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(News report from Issue No. 16, published on Nov. 22 2010)